Sometimes, it might have been better for a movie to have stayed in development hell instead of spending decades trying to scratch and claw its way into existence, a lesson that was laid bare by the failure of Tristan & Isolde.
Hardly an affront against cinema in terms of quality, it was still an entirely forgettable and decidedly unsuccessful adaptation of the titular medieval legend that was tepidly greeted by critics and died a slow and agonizingly painful death at the box office, so much so that it helped accelerate the decline of an entire studio.
In fairness, Battlefield Earth was largely to blame when the infamous sci-fi disaster was successfully sued for defrauding investors, with production company Franchise Pictures forced to pay out $121.7 million in damages. Even though it didn’t release until six years after John Travolta’s ultimate folly, Tristan & Isolde was in the midst of production when the settlement was reached in the summer of 2004.
Coupled with other notorious bombs like A Sound of Thunder and The Whole Ten Yards, there was no way the outfit was going to emerge from bankruptcy after so many flops in a row. In the end, those 30 years spent trying to bring it to the screen proved to be a fruitless endeavor to say the least, with Ridley Scott initially planning to direct Tristan & Isolde as his second feature following 1977’s The Duelists. Instead, he stuck with it and remained on board as producer, although it proved to be Kevin Reynolds’ last theatrical endeavor for a decade.
In an unexpected turn of events, though, a woefully miscast James Franco embarking on an affair with a princess has made a comeback on streaming after FlixPatrol named it as one of the biggest hits on Prime Video, even if what went on off-camera is infinitely more interesting.